Building Community During the Holidays
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Delivering resources is one of Flyer's main tenets to family engagement.
We compiled three useful ways school use their Flyer School App to deliver resources that will help spread joy this Holiday Season.
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TOYS & CLOTHING
The holidays can be an economically challenging time for many low-income families. Working together, we can make this time brighter for those families and their children.
Every winter, Slavens Elementary (Denver) continues a tradition of "adopting" families at a sister school nearby. As a community, they work to provide these families with both gifts as well as things that they need (like winter coats and shoes), using their app to host a sign up form for various Christmas items. The Slavens family is building community with their sister school, and in the process, reinforcing the true spirit of the holidays ( giving, gratitude, and solidarity ) with their children.
UTILITIES & HEALTH
As the temperatures are dropping, many families in our schools are growing increasingly more apprehensive about maintaining a warm, safe, and healthy home for their children.
LIHEAP helps identify local resources to help keep families in their homes, and maintain a healthy temperature indoors. Local Weatherization Assistance Programs (WAP) aim to help families permanently lower their utility bills by working to proactively make homes more energy efficient.
Socioeconomic factors greatly influence the volume of illness and disease, and prevent major barriers to vaccination efforts, especially during the winter flu season. Many low income families are juggling multiple jobs and cannot afford to take time off work to get vaccinated (or to stay home when they get sick). It is also common that low income and ELL families do not understand how to access flu shots, don't recognize the importance of getting a vaccine every year, or do not trust immunizations. Children are especially vulnerable.
Salida del Sol (Greeley) worked to make flu vaccinations seamless and accessible for their families. By partnering with a local health organization, they were able to host a Flu Shot Clinic right at their school, enabling their students to get vaccinated and thus mitigate the spread of disease for the entire community.
BOOKS & PODCASTS
Whether your families are settling in for the holidays at home, or packing your suitcases to visit loved ones, Christmas break is an incredible opportunity to expand horizons, encourage critical thinking, and foster strong engagement with reading.
Fontenelle Elementary (Omaha) has partnered with DIBS for Kids , which aims to put a book in the hands of new readers, every night, at home, for fun. Gust Elementary (Denver) has built in an entire tab in their app dedicated to reading, with a vast selection of books, including narration in 15 different languages!
We've compiled a list of some of our favorite e-books, audiobooks, and podcasts for children of all ages to excite young learners (and their parents! And the Flyer team!) during the holiday break.
TOYS & CLOTHING
The holidays can be an economically challenging time for many low-income families. Working together, we can make this time brighter for those families and their children.
Every winter, Slavens Elementary (Denver) continues a tradition of "adopting" families at a sister school nearby. As a community, they work to provide these families with both gifts as well as things that they need (like winter coats and shoes), using their app to host a sign up form for various Christmas items. The Slavens family is building community with their sister school, and in the process, reinforcing the true spirit of the holidays ( giving, gratitude, and solidarity ) with their children.
UTILITIES & HEALTH
As the temperatures are dropping, many families in our schools are growing increasingly more apprehensive about maintaining a warm, safe, and healthy home for their children.
LIHEAP helps identify local resources to help keep families in their homes, and maintain a healthy temperature indoors. Local Weatherization Assistance Programs (WAP) aim to help families permanently lower their utility bills by working to proactively make homes more energy efficient.
Socioeconomic factors greatly influence the volume of illness and disease, and prevent major barriers to vaccination efforts, especially during the winter flu season. Many low income families are juggling multiple jobs and cannot afford to take time off work to get vaccinated (or to stay home when they get sick). It is also common that low income and ELL families do not understand how to access flu shots, don't recognize the importance of getting a vaccine every year, or do not trust immunizations. Children are especially vulnerable.
Salida del Sol (Greeley) worked to make flu vaccinations seamless and accessible for their families. By partnering with a local health organization, they were able to host a Flu Shot Clinic right at their school, enabling their students to get vaccinated and thus mitigate the spread of disease for the entire community.
BOOKS & PODCASTS
Whether your families are settling in for the holidays at home, or packing your suitcases to visit loved ones, Christmas break is an incredible opportunity to expand horizons, encourage critical thinking, and foster strong engagement with reading.
Fontenelle Elementary (Omaha) has partnered with DIBS for Kids , which aims to put a book in the hands of new readers, every night, at home, for fun. Gust Elementary (Denver) has built in an entire tab in their app dedicated to reading, with a vast selection of books, including narration in 15 different languages!
We've compiled a list of some of our favorite e-books, audiobooks, and podcasts for children of all ages to excite young learners (and their parents! And the Flyer team!) during the holiday break.
Government distrust is at an all-time high. Many residents are wary of sharing their personal information with public agencies, often due to fears of surveillance, spam, or data misuse. This hesitation is especially acute among low-income and unhoused individuals who frequently change phone numbers due to service lapses, making traditional outreach efforts ineffective. Most public communication systems fall short. They rely on platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, which get lost in crowded inboxes. Social media, while pervasive, is designed to harvest data and push ads—not to protect user privacy. Even emergency alert systems often require residents to sign up and share their location, further eroding trust. Text messaging, often called the holy grail of communication, is no longer a guaranteed solution. People guard their phone numbers carefully, especially when interacting with the government. They fear being spammed or having their data sold. So how can agencies inform and protect the public without breaching their trust? A New Approach to Community Communication Using ReachWell's extensive experience and broad customer base, here are some recommendations to consider when engaging your community in a less intrusive yet more effective manner: Offer Communication Choices : Let residents decide how they want to receive information—whether it's through text, email, voice calls, app notifications, or a combination. This respects personal preferences and helps reduce message fatigue. Respect Anonymity : Not everyone wants to share personal contact details. Provide anonymous access to messages via public channels or apps that don’t require identifying information. Support Multilingual Access : Language should never be a barrier to safety or services. Translate messages into the primary languages spoken in your community, and consider text-to-speech options for low-literacy audiences. Allow Topic Subscription : Let people select specific topics or groups they care about. Targeted messages reduce noise and increase engagement. Minimize Data Collection : Collect only the data you truly need. Avoid tracking location or behavior unless absolutely necessary—and be transparent about what is collected and why. Ensure Accessibility : Meet or exceed accessibility standards (such as WCAG 2.2 AA compliance) so all residents, including those with disabilities, can access and understand public messages. These practices foster trust, improve message delivery, and help ensure no one is left out of important conversations—especially in moments of crisis or community need. Expanded Real-World Examples: Trusted by Diverse Communities El Paso County, CO (Colorado Springs area) uses ReachWell to distribute emergency alerts—including shelter-in-place orders and missing persons reports—in over 130 languages. Residents can receive alerts even without providing contact information. The Town of Carbondale, CO keeps its multilingual and low-literate residents informed of community events, social services, and public works projects using WCAG 2.2 AA-compliant messaging and text-to-speech capabilities—ensuring no one is left behind. Tucson, AZ : Child-Parent Centers, a Head Start provider, uses ReachWell to keep 500+ staff updated on safety alerts, training sessions, and HR notices across 130 languages—building internal trust through inclusive communication. Boulder County Housing Authority ensures ongoing connection with residents—even after their contact information changes—by sending updates about emergencies, upcoming maintenance, and resident services using ReachWell’s multilingual and anonymous outreach tools. Conclusion Building trust with residents starts with giving them control. When governments let people choose how they connect, what they receive, and in what language—trust grows. ReachWell is proving that communities can be kept safe and informed without sacrificing privacy or accessibility. When people don’t trust the system, it’s time to change the system. ReachWell is doing just that. BOOK A DEMO TODAY
In order to maximize reach, we've applied the following approach to quickly connect all families.
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